


Wearing Away Stone

by agarina_amigara



Category: Supernatural, Wincest - Fandom, weecest - Fandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-04
Updated: 2013-07-04
Packaged: 2017-12-17 15:47:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/869238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agarina_amigara/pseuds/agarina_amigara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Approximately seventy percent of the Earth’s surface is covered in water. Somehow Sam Winchester doubts that even that amount would be enough to wash him clean.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wearing Away Stone

**Author's Note:**

> This is probably the strangest thing I've ever written. I have no idea where it came from and while writing it I had no idea where it was going. I owe a lot to my friend Chelley for staying up with me into the night discussing the behavior of Obsessed Teenage Sam and also to my girlfriend/wonderful beta Dani. This story is so special to me and I hope you guys love it!

_"Water does not resist. Water flows. When you plunge your hand into it, all you feel is a caress. Water is not a solid wall, it will not stop you. But water always goes where it wants to go, and nothing in the end can stand against it. Water is patient. Dripping water wears away a stone. Remember that, my child. Remember you are half water. If you can't go through an obstacle, go around it. Water does.”_  
\- Margaret Atwood, The Penelopiad

 

Approximately seventy percent of the Earth’s surface is covered in water. The vast oceans and lakes, rivers and groundwater, glaciers and icecaps- if they were all composed into a perfect sphere, the diameter of said sphere would be approximately 860 miles. Water can be stored in the atmosphere, human beings, animals, and plants, as well as other things. 

All of this Sam Winchester knows.

And somehow he still doubts that even that amount of water would be enough to wash him clean. 

-

Sam has a problem. The problem Sam has is sixty five percent water and he wants to bathe in it. He wants to be wet from it. Soaked through until his fingers are prunes. 

The problem Sam has is his stupid asshole big brother. The fact that he’s in love with him is another problem entirely. A problem he’s not ready to deal with.

So Sam dives head first into the only other thing he really loves. Education. Science. Specifically the water cycle. He likes knowing that one molecule of water has two hydrogen atoms that are bonded to one single oxygen atom. He ignores that this is a metaphor for his pitiful excuse of a family (him, clinging to his brother, fusing them into one, fusing them into their father, creating this life sustaining, easily polluted, liquid free form thing) because science isn’t about metaphors. Science just is. It can be explained that Sam shares exactly half of his genetic make up with his brother, so therefore what he feels is wrong. What he feels is a disgrace to the perfect balance that nature has in place. 

But he feels. He feels. Sam wants and Sam yearns. It doesn’t get him anywhere, all that pining away, but he feels it just the same. He can hold his head under the water of the bathtub until he’s sure his lungs will burst but that doesn’t mean he’s growing gills. 

Because Sam can’t indulge in the obsession that has become Dean, he falls head first into the other. He buys a glass water bottle with a built in purifier in a Wal-Mart in Alpharetta, Georgia and fills it in the men’s bathroom before he slides back into the Impala. It isn’t as cold as he’d like for it to be, but as his father drives the car across the county line there are drops of condensation on the exterior of the glass. 

Sam presses his fingers against the droplets to gather up the moisture and, staring at the back of his brother’s head in the passenger seat, sucks the tips of his fingers into his mouth. 

He’s hard the rest of the trip.

-

“Have you seen my green sweatpants?” Dean is asking Sam, who’s sitting at the small kitchenette table, drawing molecules and wave patterns in the margins of his history homework. 

Sam has yet to look up, too engrossed in his new fixation, but he suddenly feels the steam leaking out of the just opened bathroom door and cranes his neck around. His mouth goes dry. Drought dry. Wind blowing grains of sand into the side of your face until your pores are leaking tiny bits of blood dry. He’s willing to bet that if you drained his body of all fluids there still wouldn’t be enough to wet his tongue. 

Dean is naked. But more importantly, Dean is WET. 

The skin on his chest is more pink than usual and a scratchy motel towel hangs loosely around his hips, only tight where he has the cloth fisted at his side. He’s bending at the waist to rummage through his army green duffle with the hand not at his side and Sam can see one pure, perfect droplet sliding out from under the dark hair at the nape of Dean’s neck. He follows it as it slides down the length of Dean’s spine until it nestles, smaller now, in the dip of his back.

It’s scientifically impossible but Sam is a million percent sure the volume of that droplet beats out the Atlantic and Pacific combined. 

Dean’s turning around, facing Sam with an arm out in the air as if to say “Hello? Earth to Sam!” but he’s so... he’s so...

“Wet.”

He doesn’t plan on saying it until he’s said it, and the obviousness of that hangs in the air between them like a dark, dense rain cloud. His heart is pumping his blood faster and faster, like choppy torrents pushing through a dam. Dean laughs.

“Uh, yeah,” he says, cocking a brow. “That’s what happens when you bathe. You get wet.” He’s laughing again, quieter now, and reaching back into his duffle. “You should know,” Dean scoffs. He pushes his hand more forcefully into the bag and the towel around him shifts lower. “You’re always in the bathroom, taking bubble baths like a damn girl. You’re a fourteen year old dude, right? Not a fish.” He cocks his head, withdrawing his hand clutching a balled up pair of sweatpants. “Actually, yeah, I bet that’s it. You think you’re like, a mermaid or something. What’s that redhead Disney bitch’s name? The one with the purple sea shell titties?”

Sam forces his eyes away. These two things are supposed to distract him from the other. There's a world with Dean and a world with water. They are not supposed to coexist. 

“Ariel,” Sam answers. He doesn’t grumble it like he wants to, doesn’t get an attitude. He says the name and goes back to his homework, ignores the doodles in the margin. Ignores the fact that Dean has dropped his towel and is now pulling sweats up over his still damp thighs. He has to stop himself from looking, from saying something like “Please touch me, I want to be showered in you, I want to be drenched with whatever you see fit to give”. He chews the cap on his pen and for now it is enough to keep his mouth occupied. 

He wishes his water bottle wasn’t the only thing with a filter. 

-

A couple of months later they’re somewhere inside of Ecola State Park when Sam hears a familiar voice yell "Shit!" followed by a thud.

Sam is dozing off, stretching his ever growing body out in the backseat, but the feeling of the car jolting rips him out of sleep. He sits up too quickly, head not quite catching up with his body, and looks to the front seat where his eyes instinctively track down his brother. Dean’s got both hands braced against the dash as the car makes a sudden halt, then inches over to the side of the road, but Sam notes that at least he’s not shaking with fear. He looks shocked, but as long as he’s not afraid, Sam knows everything will be fine. 

He’s suddenly making contact with his father’s hazel eyes in the rearview mirror.

“You okay, son?” John asks. Sam swallows a lump in his throat and nods. Dean pulls back from the dashboard now and he turns to lean his left arm against the back of the front seat. He leers at Sam.

“You sure you didn’t wet yourself, Sammy?” He’s still wearing that smirk, that shit eating grin that he always wears when he teases Sam. It should annoy him a lot more than it does. Instead, Sam just gets caught up in the bit of spit he can see inside Dean’s mouth.

“I’m fine, Dean,” he huffs. He scratches at the side of his face, itchy and hot from where it was pressed against the leather of the backseat, and steals a glance out the window. Trees. Everywhere. They're the only things he can see. Tall, with branches that don’t begin until halfway up the trunk. Sam doesn’t know what kind of trees they are but he knows water sustains them and it makes him feel like they have a connection. “Where are we? Why’d we stop?”

John has opened the driver's side door and is now leaning back in to grab his jacket. He locks eyes with Dean, says “Fill your brother in.” Dean nods firmly, ever the good little soldier and turns back to smirk at Sam. 

"We're in that park that dad says the wendigo's in. Ain't seen," Dean checks to see if John is in earshot. He's popping the trunk. "Shit, but trees for miles. Trees and rocks and a fuck ton of elk. Which is what the sound was." 

Sam's eyes dart to the front of the car. There's one single rivulet of crimson in the upper right corner of the windshield. 

For the first time it really occurs to him that water isn't the only thing that flows and sustains life. 

"We killed an elk," he says. 

Dean snorts. "Nah, we didn't kill it."

Sam's eyes go wide. There's a stray eyelash on Dean's cheek and innocent blood on the windshield and it's all just a little too much for post-napping Sam to process. 

"What do you mean we didn't kill it?”

Dean gestures to the back of the Impala where John is now slamming the trunk. Sam cranes his head to look out the left back door window. His father has that trademark stern look on his face as he breezes past the window, but there's a blankness in his eyes. Sam watches as he rounds the car and stomps to a shivering hump of brown twitching in the grass a few yards away. He sees it then. The shotgun in his father's hands.

"Oh god," he groans. With little thought he's climbing over his father's seat, brushing Dean's side as he rearranges his limbs to open the door. "I can't be here for this," Sam says. He's not sure if he's saying it to Dean or to the air.

The sun outside the car is dim, hidden behind fog and blocked by trees. Soon Sam is pushing through the foliage, drops of dew on the leaves of bushes sticking to the jacket that used to be Dean's. There are stains on it and a scent so deep in the fabric that no amount of washing will ever get it out. Sam hates it, that reminder of Dean not only in every motel room and school hall across the country, but right down to the seams of his clothes. 

It's then that he hears it. The bang of his father's gun. It startles him, sends him running. Was this what that elk felt? Did something shock it, compel it to leap in front of the car? 

Sam pictures the blood seeping out onto the already wet grass and pushes his legs harder. Out of the trees and over a blacktop parking lot. He can hear the slapping of his sneakers against the pavement. It gives him a rush of adrenaline, sending him shooting past parked cars loaded down with camping gear until he's surrounded by trees again. Sam wants to run so fast his feet make the pitter-patter sounds of raindrops. 

His lungs are aching and his jacket is damp when he reaches it. 

The ocean is huge, ever reaching and pushing up closer to him before falling back on itself. The sand that surrounds it is impossible to run through and Sam slows, taking his time to scan the beach for people. Finding none he steps out from the edge of trees and tentatively presses a sneaker covered foot against the sand. He's only been to a hand full of beaches but they were all sun and fun and Dean's freckled back too close to his line of vision to pay attention to anything else. This beach is so different than those that it seems almost inappropriate to compare them. There are tide pools covering it, rocks jutting from beneath the waves to tower over three times his height. Sam finds a dry patch of sand a few yards from the shore and spreads his jacket out on it before sitting down directly in the center.

His head is swimming with the scents of salt and decaying kelp and he misses Dean. He wants Dean to come and find him, wrap an arm around his shoulder and kiss his temple, say "I'm sorry I'm such a jerk to you, it's the only thing I know," and watch the waves creep closer to them as the moon shifts the tide. But there are things Sam will never have and on that long, long list (a home, a mother, a bed of his own, and endless supply of glass bottles and filters and purifiers and water and water and water) is Dean.

But eventually, Dean does come to him. Not exactly on the way Sam wants, but he'll take what he can get. 

Dean plops down on the sand beside him, presses something other than his hand into the side of Sam's leg. Sam looks down. It's his water bottle. 

"I thought you might have an episode if you realized you'd left that," Dean tells him. “Like some kind of total spaz attack. ‘Fraid I’d get down here and you’d be running around naked and chugging sea water.” 

That doesn’t sound like a bad idea to Sam. 

Dean digs a small hole in the sand and sticks the bottle down into it while Sam watches him through the corner of his left eye, knees pulled up to his chest and arms wrapped them. It’s getting chilly and his jacket is still underneath him. Dean sees him shiver and if that’s what makes him slide a little closer until their shoulders are touching, who’s to say.

“I wish you-”

“You know I-”

They stop, words mingling, and lock eyes. Dean laughs shortly and rubs at his chin, pushing against Sam’s arm lightly with his own. Sam’s body rocks in the sand. “You first,” Dean says. There’s a curiosity in his eyes that Sam rarely ever sees anymore. 

Sam burrows his chin into his knees. He thinks of how the cyclopean rocks stabbing out of the sea remind him of Dean. Jagged, dark, disturbing all that beautiful water. Rising up, more visible, more important. More there. Of course the sea is there, but the sea is everywhere. What’s important here are those rocks arching up towards the sky. All the sense that the water makes is destroyed by their forms. Sam wants to climb them and jump off the edges into the deep, deep blue.

“I wish you wouldn’t talk to me the way you do sometimes,” he begins. “When you get mean, you know. You tease me a lot and it’s,” Sam clears his throat, sighs, “it’s stupid because I know you don’t really feel that way about me. We’re not the kind of siblings that hate each other. You lov- you care about me. But you’re a jerk sometimes, Dean.” 

When Sam looks over the wonder in Dean’s eyes is gone. Dean nods, once, firmly, picks up a rock and smooths it between his fingers. “I’m sorry,” he says. Sam starts to tell him there’s no need for apologies but Dean is pushing on. “I’m always good to you in school, right? You know I’d rip out anyone’s throat who comes near you. Make sure everybody else knows it too. Never ignore you. I never... fuck, Sammy.” He tosses the stone at the sea and Sam winces when it hits the water.

Sam inhales and it’s shaking. He can taste the ocean. He wants to gulp down every drop.

“It’s August, Dean. We haven't been in school for months.”

After a pause, Dean nods again. There’s nothing to say and for once Dean acknowledges it.

A comfortable silence settles over the beach before Sam breaks it. “Anyway,” he says, pausing to hear a particularly large wave crashing, “What was it you were going to say?”

Dean perks up, shrugs his shoulders. “I was just going to say that I...” When he looks over he expects to be met with those big hazel eyes that have a way of conning him into anything, but instead all he sees is the side of his brother’s face. Sam’s lost to him now, eyes focused on the horizon. Sam’s body is here, Dean can feel it pressed against his arm, leaning in just a little. But Sam’s mind is far out underwater, sliding across the cool ocean floor. 

Dean looks out over the water, tries to imagine what Sam finds in all those billions upon billions of droplets. He just sees rocks and the sea. 

“Nothing,” he whispers. “Nevermind, Sammy.”

They sit in silence, braced against each other, as the tide creeps closer. 

-

More months go by, and with them, more filters in his bottle. More times Sam wishes he could dissolve into every body of water the Impala passes.

-

Sam’s fifteenth birthday is on a Saturday. 

He’s in between schools thanks to a particularly riled up werewolf making it its personal mission to see how many shades of blue and black it could make his face, and because it’s the weekend anyway it isn’t hard for Dean to convince John to take them up to South Dakota to see Bobby (“for an actual birthday for once, Dad,”).

Sitting around a table covered in cake remnants and paper plates (there will be no dishes to rinse and wash and part of him aches at the missed opportunity of touching water), Sam collects his presents. Nothing is wrapped but nothing ever is. He gets a new pistol from his father, two books on Latin from Bobby, a collection of plaid button ups, a hair ruffle, and a “cuz I’m tired of you stealing all of mine,” from Dean. He smiles weakly around his bruises and announces that he’ll be heading off to bed. Dean jumps up to help him gather up his new things, as if having a broken left arm and two splinted fingers on his right hand means he can’t carry anything heavier than shirts, and follows him down to the hall to “their” guest room. 

“You good getting undressed?” Dean asks, setting down Sam’s books in a chair in the corner of the room. “I’m gonna go take a shower but I’ll help if you need it.” He checks the chambers of the revolver to make sure it's good and loaded before he slips it onto the bedside table nearest Sam. As safe as Bobby’s is, in Dean’s mind nothing is safe enough when it comes to Sam.

Sam wants to laugh and tell Dean to get out of his face with the protective brother crap, but he’s only had this cast and splint on for two days and so far every taking-off-clothes moment has ended in him being pink cheek frustrated and out of breath. 

Sam pushes his not-as-injured hand through his bangs. “I need help out of my shirts,” he says, kicking his boots off. “And if you don’t mind you could unbutton and unzip my jeans but if you make fun of me so help me god, Dean,” He’s interrupted by Dean laughing. Not a mocking laugh but a bright one that lights up the dim room. 

Sam stands up off the edge of the bed and Dean motions for him to turn around. He, entirely too gently, tugs at the collar of Sam’s outer shirt until his arm is free and it’s dangling in the crook of his injured elbow. Once he’s turned back around Sam watches Dean’s downturned face, screwed up in way too much concentration as he pulls the shirt free. He mumbles something like “one down...” and Sam does his best to lift one arm above his head. His body makes a misshapen “Y”, unbroken arm up in the air and the other far closer to being straight out to his side. He watches Dean’s still downturned face,follows his fingers hooking underneath the hem of his shirt, and then he’s seeing nothing but dark green as the fabric passes over his face. 

The room is colder than it usually is. Goosebumps break out over Sam's arms before spreading up like wildfire, licking along his shoulders and back, then finally his chest. He's been shirtless-hell he's been naked-in front of Dean more times than he can count but he feels different. He feels... watched. He knows that Dean is undressing him, but it's not supposed to feel like Dean is undressing him. Sam chews his lip and thinks about the different ways to purify water using nothing but standard kitchen supplies. 

Dean exhales and tosses Sam's shirt on the bed before he's scratching at his scalp.

"This is uh," he laughs shakily, like he's thinking of the punchline to a joke he can't quite remember, "This is kind of awkward right?" Dean's reaching down towards Sam's crotch, and for a moment Sam thinks to jerk away. The jeans are hand me downs, just like almost everything else he owns, and are still somehow too tight to simply shimmy off while still riding low on his hips. So low that there's a horizontal line of dark hair peeking out. 

Sam feels mortified. Sam feels trapped. 

Sam feels like he's getting hard. 

Dean's fingers find his button and just as he presses the metal through the hole Sam feels the back of Dean's hand brush just above the line of his jeans.He tries not to, he swears it, but the gasp that comes out of his mouth is audible.He knows Dean hears it because his nostrils flare and he makes quick work of his zipper before stepping back, as if there's some invisible line that he can cross that will make this okay. As if he can retreat into some territory where his kid brother's baggy jeans aren't bulging in the front with something more than just "the famous Winchester endowment".

Sam’s not thinking you could cut the tension with a knife. Sam’s thinking the blades of the sharpest knife in his father’s arsenal would dull and scrape against what he feels in this room.

Dean’s looking at him more than he should be. He’s looking through him, eyes not finding one solid spot on Sam’s skin, but roaming free over the expanse of skinny chest, jutting hips, jangly cast covered limbs. Dean’s staring. And Sam doesn’t think he knows. 

Suddenly, there’s a burst of laughter coming from down the hall and Dean jumps near out of his skin, sucks in a breath and bolts for the door.

Sam sits down on the edge of the bed, his even more loosened jeans falling below his ass, and contemplates whether or not he has the restraint to not drown himself in Bobby’s bathtub. 

From where Sam’s sitting he can’t see the door leading to the hall but he can hear his brother open it. His hands are shaking. He holds his palms out and stares, recalls information he learned as a child: no two palmprints are alike. Despite the fact, a part of him still wonders if his thumbprints are exactly like Dean’s. 

Dean stops in the open doorway, and speaks, his voice breaking through the fog of panic in Sam’s mind. 

“Your real present is under your side of the bed.”

Before Sam can reply, the door is shut and the room is silent.

Under the left side of the bed is a plastic grocery bag. Sam strips himself of his jeans and braces himself against the cold wood before fishing it out with his splinted hand. Dean has tied a seemingly impossible knot with the handles and Sam has to resort to ripping the thing apart with his teeth. The bag shreds and Sam sorts through the contents on the bed. 

Sandalwood scented bath salts. Milk and honey bath powder. A Walkman and a cassette tape of rain sounds. A new (better) water bottle. Filter replacements. And a note. 

Happy birthday, mermaid boy.

Feeling somewhere between giddiness and unease, Sam packs the contents away. He doesn’t feel ready to rid himself of his first water bottle but his new one is from Dean. It’s suddenly his most precious possession. He tucks it into the mesh pocket made for bottles on the outside of his pack and then hurries to the warm comfort of the wrought iron bed that he sometimes secretly calls his own (god knows it’s the closest thing he’s ever had). 

When a freshly showered Dean slides into bed beside him some thirty odd minutes later, the only water Sam is thinking about is the liquid of his brother’s eyes. 

-

Sam realizes something's up two weeks after they leave Bobby’s and Dean starts ordering ice waters in every diner they come across. 

Dean doesn't do "healthy". Dean does cherry colas and slices of cherry pie to match. So many slices that he's leaning back against the booth, sighing and popping open the buttons on his jeans. Dean does binge drinking. Dean does handfuls of gummy worms and potato chips and soft drink after soft drink after soft drink in the passenger seat on long trips.

Now Dean only orders water. 

Sam ignores it at first. He thinks Dean is probably just thirsty. Maybe he thinks he's put on a couple of pounds in the three weeks there's been nothing to hunt and he's feeling self conscious. Who knows. But it's not until they're at the Hungry House in Chattanooga, Tennessee that Sam realizes something is really, really wrong. 

"I'll have a water, sweetheart," Dean drawls, winking at the curvy waitress who's making it her personal mission to unhinge her jaw by chewing her gum as hard as possible. There’s a sliver of her ebony skin showing where her top ends and jean shorts begin and Sam watches as Dean hones in on that spot like he’s using sonar. "My brother here will have one too." Dean's eyes meet Sam's across the table and Dean smirks, actually fucking smirks, and knocks Sam's knee with his under the table. 

John sits beside Dean, lost in his own world, pouring over the menu like he's not going to order the breakfast steak and eggs. "I just want a Coke," he tells the waitress, not even looking up from the menu. Sam's thankful for his father's concentration. The last thing Sam needs is for John to look up and ask why his demeanor seems three times more annoyed than usual. 

Sam is busy poking indents in the plastic placemat with the tongs of his fork and thinking about how much it itches under his cast when their waitress sits down two glasses of water in front of him. She cranes over and sits down a Cola in front of John, who then takes his time ordering ("uh, two eggs over easy, toast, and uh, your biggest breakfast rib eye"). Sam doesn't hear any of it. He doesn't hear any of Dean's order either. 

The cups of water are tall, clear, branded with the Coca Cola logo in red print. Drops of condensation cling to the lower half of them and Sam watches one stray drop slide to the base and soak into the paper napkin that rests underneath the cup. 

If he's thinking of Dean, fresh out of the shower with droplets on his back, it's not his fault. If his dick is getting hard under the table, that's not his fault either. 

Dean picks up his cup, smearing the water clinging to the outside all over his fingers. He bites the tip on the plastic wrapping covering his straw and draws the straw out with his teeth before pushing it through layers of ice and into his drink. 

Sam feels frantic. His eyeballs are physically hurting, darting from the water, Dean, water, Dean over and over again. He can't sit here and watch this with his father one tabletop away. 

Sam is shaking. Dean's just drinking water. He knows that. He knows that inside Dean's mouth water is pooling and making his tongue cool to the touch before sliding down his throat. He knows. He knows that if Dean licked the flesh just below his nipple the skin there would rise and gather up, break out in goosebumps from the chill of Dean's tongue. He knows. He fucking KNOWS. He aches with the knowledge of it all. His body thrums with science. The Big Bang Theory and Lucy "the missing link" and the process of diseases become airborne. Sam's bones grow weary with understanding. 

Dean's got that fucking mouth of his puckered around his straw, pulling in water like a drain, and when Sam lets his eyes drift up from it, their eyes lock. Dean looks fucked out. Dean looks sinful. 

Dean looks as good as water. 

He's up before he knows it. Knocking into their waitress who shrieks out a "Watch it!" before he's turning a corner, pushing open the bathroom door with the force of all his weight, and locking it behind him. He turns the knobs on the sink as far as they'll go and sticks his head under the faucet, gulping down lukewarm water as if it'll save his life. He has to pull back when the water starts to heat up, it tastes too germy and almost burns his tongue, and he watches with a feeling much like dread in his stomach as the steam from the tap fogs up the dirty mirror above the sink. 

It takes Sam seven whole minutes before he can leave the bathroom.

And if there's a little "D" smeared into the steam on the mirror, Dean pretends not to notice when he's done eating and goes to wash his hands. 

-

The night of "The Diner Incident" Sam dreams that he's drowning. 

It isn't nearly as scary as it should be. 

-

The Impala breezes through two more states before Dean tries anything funny.

Sam’s watches him more carefully now, not sure if Dean thinks Sam wants him or if Dean knows. It’s easy to forget how sensitive to his surroundings Dean is when he stomps through life like he stomps through foliage of deep woods, stomps over feelings and “chick flick moments” with outward annoyance and nonchalance. It’s easy for Sam to be shocked that Dean has actually caught on to Sam’s feelings for water because it’s completely unlike Dean to focus on anything other than what his dick is focused on, and Sam doesn’t dare entertain the notion that this time, Dean’s dick might just be focused on him. 

At least until John’s paired up with some pretty blonde at a bar and gives his son’s that look of “I need a while, don’t wait up”. 

After that it’s not a notion to be entertained, it’s a notion to be fretted over. Sam can feel Dean’s eyes on him from the driver’s seat after they part ways with their father and head back to their motel. It’s lightly raining out, and to keep his eyes from accidentally meeting Dean’s he keeps them on his window, watches small drops slide into others, devouring them one by one as they slide down the glass.

Dean’s humming under his breath, Zeppelin’s “Going to California”, when they pull into the parking lot. Sam is out of the car before Dean, fight or flight senses kicking in while he pushes the passenger door open. As wound up as Dean’s got him, he couldn’t bear that moment of quiet after the keys are pulled from the ignition and there’s nothing but the settling noises of the Impala’s engine and the pitter patter of rain. Once he shuts the passenger door, he turns his face up into the rain. This, he’s thinking, this is the moment that he could live inside forever. The dull glow of the motel’s vacancy sign replaces the images of Dean’s knuckles, Dean’s hip bones, Dean’s collarbone stored in his head and he thinks it again. 

This is the moment I could live inside forever. This is the rain that could cure everything.

But then Dean’s door is slamming and he hears his brother’s voice yelling “Sam, get out of the damn rain!” as he’s running for the door. It’s coming down harder now, creating tiny metallic bangs on the hood of the car. 

Even as he’s trudging towards the door Sam doesn’t want to go in, doesn’t want that small trapped space so full of Dean when he can be here enveloped in all this water. 

Dean’s turning on a lamp when Sam shuts the door behind him, sits down on the bed and kicks off his shoes. It takes him a minute to shrug his wet coat off with his cast in the way but he manages, and when he’s done he sees Dean sitting on the opposite bed, toeing off his boots.

It’s quiet. It’s completely silent actually, save for the faint noise of Dean’s body moving against the scratchy floral cover of the bed as he pulls off his jacket and then his jeans. 

Sam’s not looking. Sam is NOT looking. He pulls at his jeans until they’re low enough to kick himself out of and lies down, rolls over onto his stomach and just buries his face into bedding covered in god knows how many germs. There’s the sound of Dean’s footsteps and then the tap running and it’s enough to lull Sam into some state where he’s still aware of his surroundings but it feels impossible to move. 

He's drifting into sleep, thinking about a forever ago on the beach in Oregon with Dean, when he feels fingers on his shoulder. He's feeling too foggy to move yet, but his mind is instantly on alert. The fingers are warm and they're moving now, sliding down his shoulder blade, slowly but surely, like the hand that they're attached to is afraid. Sam is awake now. Sam is wide fucking awake and he can hear Dean above him, breathing hard. It isn't just his hands that are afraid. It's him. It's Dean. Dean's afraid of his kid brother, afraid of the skin of his back and that mole that's just under his shoulder blade that he's touching, he's finally touching Sam after all this fucking time he's TOUCHING him and Sam is so awake that his eyes are wide open against the covers on the bed. He can't see it, but above him, Dean's lowering himself to sit on the edge of the bed. The weight of his causes Sam to roll into him just a bit closer and his side is flush against Dean's naked hip. His hand is all the way at the base of Sam's spine now and if he wasn't covered in goosebumps before, he is now. 

"You know." Dean says. It isn't the beginning of a sentence or a question. It's a statement. Sam knows. He does. He always has somewhere so far inside him that his blood doesn't touch. That knowing was what he tried to wash out with facts, with textbooks, with essays, with water. "You know, Sammy. You've known for so long."

Dean's index finger traces the skin just millimeters above Sam's boxer briefs. 

"You've known for so long, and now I do too."

That's when the cracks in the dam finally give way, and the water that rushes through floods everything in sight. 

Sam rolls over, pushes himself up on his less injured arm, up into Dean. Dean's skin is everywhere and he clings to it, loops his broken arm around the back of Dean's neck and stifles the fear that rises up in him, shuts down the voice in his head that tells him Dean thinks this entire thing is lame. Their faces inch closer and the scratch of Dean's stubble is rough against Sam's cheek. He's still mumbling, "I know, I know", and then his mouth is on Sam's, prying him open with his tongue and licking along his teeth. Sam is dizzy, trying to kiss back but losing it over how slick and wet Dean's tongue is. It's messy and hot and nothing like the two kisses with faceless girls in different states that he's had before. His brother's fingers are digging into the skin between his shoulder blades and it hurts but it's Dean, it's finally Dean. 

And suddenly Sam is realizing- this is it. This is the moment that the ever persistent water wears away the stone. This is the moment his patience, his seemingly unrequited yearning will finally pay off. 

He has never been so fucking horrified. 

Sam feels himself being nudged back, pushed backwards onto the bed and gives a groan of protest. He's not ready to leave the comfort of Dean's mouth, the warmth and the wetness he's dreamt about since before he can remember. Dean chuckles, pushes at Sam harder until he's resting heavy against the bedding. He's half hard in his boxer briefs and doesn't miss the way Dean glances towards his crotch. Pushing his fear down, Sam gives a little roll of his hips for show and sighs, barely stifles a giggle at the way Dean sucks in a breath. 

Dean runs a hand through his hair, says "Can't have you stealing the show," and then he's reaching for something on the bedside table. Sam's eyes follow the freckles of Dean's arms until he sees it, just moments before Dean pulls his arm back. He remembers before Dean touched him, when he had turned over onto his stomach and tried to shut his brother out. The sound of the tap. He had heard it rushing, heard it filling something. Imagined Dean was brushing his teeth or just thirsty. But there it is in Dean's hand: a hotel issue paper cup. Sam can bet it's full of water.

Dean puts the cup to his mouth and Sam can see him smiling, can see some fucked up plan hatching like a snake in his brother's eyes. Sam sits up, tugging at the bend of Dean's elbow, whining out his name. The room is too hot, too small, too above sea level and he needs Dean in his mouth again. He doesn't care if Dean's thirsty right now, doesn't care if Dean dries up like a raisin in this very moment because he has got to lick his way right back into his brother's mouth. He's got to wind around him, inside him, fall face first and splash into all things Dean. 

But Dean, the bastard, is still sipping at the paper cup, throat not moving to swallow, cheeks puffing out a little. 

Sam's getting ready to pitch an all out fit when Dean puts down the cup, pushes Sam in the center of his chest until he lands with a umfph! against the pillows in front of the headboard. Dean is over him so fast he can't react, can't think, straddling him in the best way, cleft of his barely covered ass riding the line of Sam's dick. He reaches around, tugs at the long, wispy hairs at the back of Sam's neck and pulls, cranes his little brother's head back and Sam feels a little more than slutty when his mouth falls open and a groan comes out. 

"Dean..." falls from his mouth, light and spinning to the floor like a dropped communion wafer, and Dean leans over him. It's then, mouth open chest heaving dick harder than it's ever been in his entire life pressed down by all the weight of Dean, that he realizes Dean's mouth is still full. 

It starts as a trickle. A drop hits his cheek before Dean angles his head in the absolute slightest way and the next few drops slide down his tongue to the back of his throat where they create a small pool before Sam chokes it all down. Then there's a gust not unlike a waterfall between them, connecting them, slipping from Dean to Sam, Sam to Dean. Connecting them like their blood, like their hunting, like the scratches of initials that chubby hands left in the Impala. 

Sam is sure, absolutely positively SURE that he has died. He has died and god has heard his prayers and has placed him in the perfect heaven. A heaven that winds together everything Sam needs. He's no longer choosing between Dean and water, no longer trying to replace one with the other. He has them both, the taste of them both in his mouth in this very moment. 

Sam chases the liquid up through the air to Dean's mouth, crashes their lips together until he hears the click of teeth, feels the splash of water in his mouth and on his face. He claws his way up into Dean, forgets shame, forgets fear, and pushes his hips up against him, slides against his older brother and bucks up in between Dean's legs. Dean's got his hand still in Sam's hair, the other planted along the side of Sam's face. He hears whispers of wrong in his head when he thinks about the time when Sam was so small he could cup his entire head in his hands. But that wrong is pushed so deep down Dean couldn't even hear it if it screamed when Sam tears his mouth away, leaving a trail of Dean’s spit sliding across his cheek, and presses his face into Dean’s ear. Tells him in a voice not suitable for baby brothers, “I want you to fuck me.”

Dean’s eyes are wide and getting wider still when Sam leans back against, big goofy grin and broken arm and water/spit slicked chin. Dean suddenly feels like he’s not seducing Sam; he feels like it’s the other way around. Like this water thing wasn’t Sam’s coping mechanism, Sam’s kink. It was always about a bond between them, a bond he didn’t understand but Sam did, just like the bonding of atoms inside their bodies, inside that hotel paper cup. 

He’s kissing his way down Sam’s torso, every press of wet lips an “I’m sorry”, “I want this”, “don’t be scared”. Every press getting him closer to that line of hard flesh in Sam’s underwear. 

He can hear Sam above him, whispers of “Dean” and sighs. He tries to get a hand in Dean’s hair but the splint on his fingers gets in the way, thumps metal against Dean’s head, and Dean reaches up, takes Sam’s wrists and presses them against the mattress at his sides. Dean’s eyes say “stay” and Sam’s eyes say “hurry” and the room is too hot, too bright, too much when Dean fastens his mouth around the cloth covering of Sam’s cock and licks, wet slick warm rough too much fuck, right up the length. The material soaks quickly, starts to cool but he’s not stopping, fastening his lips around the head and flicking his tongue, gathering spit in his mouth and pushing it onto Sam’s boxer briefs. Sam’s full on fucking whining now, head twisting and turning when looking down at Dean becomes just too much, what little of his hands are exposed are twisted up into something like fists. 

Dean’s pulling down his briefs now, kissing the peaks of Sam’s hip bones, running his tongue everywhere because this is Sam and Sam deserves to be tasted, Sam deserves to be bathed. Sam deserves Dean’s tongue running up the length of him, the actual length of velvet salt tang skin and it’s too good, it’s too good too much because he’s licking the palm of his hand in between sucking at the underside of Sam’s dick and reaching down into his underwear, tugging at his cock in a way he hasn’t since he figured out what “touching yourself” meant. 

Sam’s saying his name now, actually fucking saying it. He chants it out like it’s a prayer to Neptune, like Dean’s gonna stop if he doesn’t say it. When Dean looks over the expanse of his torso he can see Sam trying to look back at him, trying to memorize the image of his dick flat against his body and shining with spit, Dean’s tongue drawing protection symbols and the alphabet and Devil’s Traps and S’s, so many S’s for the times Sam fell asleep without a shirt on, for the times he looked at Dean like he was starving, for the times he locked his hands around that filtered bottle and shut out everything else. He curves his tongue for the times he pushed into some nameless girl with short brown hair from behind and bit Sam’s name into her back because if he said it that would be too much like admitting. He sucks and laps for the times he got hard watching Sam in the rearview mirror, licking stray drops of condensation on that goddamn water bottle. He rubs his face in everything that is Sam, groans as his fist flies up and down his own dick, moans out “want you to come for me, Sammy” and sucks the tip of Sam’s cock between the tight ring of his lips. 

Sam’s hands aren’t on the bed anymore but down on either side of Dean’s head. The cast feels hard and fucking ridiculous but the unsplinted fingers on his opposite hand have twisted into the longer parts of Dean’s hair and Sam is wheezing, is actually wheezing like he’s gonna have a heart attack right there. His eyes are fluttering, hips jumping, and Dean’s sucking him down as far as he can, which isn’t far but he’s trying so hard and he knows that as long as he keeps his tongue slipping all up and down Sam and keeps giving him that better than a porno soundtrack of wet slurping and gagging, Sam’s gonna come. 

“Oh, fuck, Dean,” each word punctuated by a wiggle of hips and Sam’s eyes go wide like he’s seeing god in the ceiling. And maybe he is. 

Later Dean will be startled by how he could feel when Sam was about to come, but for now he’s pulling back, panting and wrapping a hand around Sam, sliding his fist hard and fast, looking up and saying things he’ll be hesitant to discuss when this is all over (“so good for me, Sammy, so good and so fucking hot knew you’d come for me like this knew you’d let me get you wet let me make you feel so fucking good”) and Sam’s fingers are twisting in the sheets, neck craning up to watch Dean. 

Dean bends down, licks the precum from the head of Sam’s dick, and whispers, demanding “Sammy. Come.”

And does he ever.

He sucks in a breath and holds, pushes his hips up into Dean’s hands, comes white and hot and sticky and wet all over Dean’s chest and stomach. Dean’s still jacking him through the aftershocks of orgasm when he begins rutting his own dick against the side of Sam’s thigh. It feels too damn good, the soft hairs on Sam’s legs catching on the sensitive underside of the head of his dick. Sam wraps a hand around his brother’s shoulder, runs the flat of his tongue against the side of Dean’s neck, murmurs “you taste so good” into the skin there, and then Dean’s coming hard, grunting out Sam’s name over and over, angling himself away so his cum hits the bed. 

When he’s done, Dean rolls over beside Sam and let’s out a shaky breath. He can feel the backs of their hands pressed together. 

“I’m so not sleeping on the wet spots,” he says. 

There are a few moments of silence when everything is quiet and all that can be heard are the hums from the mini fridge and the air conditioner kicking on. 

“You’re sleeping on it, not me,” Sam huffs in that voice that reminds Dean he’s still a fifteen year old boy. “I feel like the last year of my life has been one, huge wet spot.” 

Everything is quiet for a few more moments and then it happens. Sam laughs. It bubbles out of him like hot water from a spring, reaches high into the air and fills the room. Dean just looks at him like he’s fucking crazy. This boy with tousled hair and pink cheeks, boxer briefs damp in some places and pulled down to his mid thighs, arm in a cast with silly sentiments like “DEAN WAS HERE” scribbled on them, and he’s laughing. His sides are drawing up he’s laughing so hard. 

It’s all too much for Dean not to be losing it and within seconds he’s laughing right along with Sam, turning onto his side to face his brother and throwing an arm over him, laughing right into the side of his bony shoulder. They laugh and laugh, Dean spooned against Sam’s side, until the laughter fades out into occasional giggles. 

When everything is quiet, Dean presses a single kiss to the side of Sam’s shoulder. 

Sam feels it spread out and flood over him, washing away any fear in sight. 

-

Approximately seventy percent of the Earth’s surface is covered in water.

Sam Winchester knows that. 

But Sam knows even more that he loves his brother. 

And that love, unlike water, will never evaporate.


End file.
